Dawn Primarolo: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and I are today meeting with the banking industry to discuss the application of the Government's identity fraud strategy.
	The Home Office is today making a statement about the national strategy for tackling ID fraud. Within this strategy, the Treasury and the FSA are working with the financial services industry to ensure it has in place the most effective systems to fight financial crime. New industry guidance to be published shortly will strengthen the system of ID checks whilst reducing the inconvenience for the consumer.
	HMRC will carry out an assessment of the typical profile of frauds committed against it, to assist the banks in identifying suspect payments and accounts, enabling them to make timely suspicious activity reports to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). HMRC will contact any firms that have been party to these frauds.
	The Chancellor and the Home Secretary recently asked Sir Stephen Lander, chair-designate of the forthcoming new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), to undertake a review of the suspicious activity reporting regime. Sir Stephen is to report by the end of March 2006.

Harriet Harman: My right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor has made the following written ministerial statement.
	"The Government announced plans for significant constitutional reform on 12 June 2003, designed to enhance the independence of the judiciary and to ensure clarity in the relationship between the Executive and the judiciary. I plan shortly to introduce the required statutory instruments to bring into force those parts of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 that will deliver the central aspects of those reforms. As of 3 April 2006, I intend to bring the new Judicial Appointments Commission into being and commence those aspects of the Act that give statutory effect to the provisions of the concordat I agreed with the Lord Chief Justice.
	Roles of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice
	As of 3 April, the Lord Chancellor's role as a judge will cease. The Lord Chief Justice will hold the additional title of President of the Courts of England and Wales and be legally recognised as the head of the judiciary in England and Wales. As set out in the Concordat, the role of the Lord Chief Justice will be significantly reformed and strengthened. To support the Lord Chief Justice, the Judicial Office for England and Wales has been established and the new head of that office has recently been appointed and taken up post.
	"In addition, to give effect to the new arrangements for the handling of judicial disciplinary matters, a new office for judicial complaints will be established. The arrangements relating to judicial complaints and discipline will be published shortly".
	Judicial Independence and Rule of Law
	As of 3 April, for the first time there will be a guarantee of continued judicial independence enshrined in statute, underpinned by particular duties binding on the Lord Chancellor and Ministers of the Crown to uphold judicial independence. The Act also formally recognises the constitutional principle of the rule of law and the Lord Chancellor's role in relation to that principle.
	Judicial Appointments Commission
	As of 3 April 2006, the Judicial Appointments Commission will be formally launched. The appointment of Baroness Prashar as the inaugural Chair of the new Commission was announced on 6 October 2005. The Queen has given effect to the following appointments:
	Judicial members
	Lord Justice Sir Robin Ernest Auld
	Lady Justice Heather Hallett DBE
	Her Honour Judge Frances Margaret Kirkham
	District Judge Charles William Frank Newman
	Tribunal member
	His Honour Judge David Stephen Pearl
	Lay Justice Member
	Lorna May Boreland-Kelly DBE JP
	Professional Members
	Mr Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption QBE QC
	Mr Edward Nally
	Lay Members
	Professor Hazel Gillian Genn CBE
	Sir Geoffrey David Inkin QBE
	Mr Francis John Plowden
	Ms Harriet Greville Spicer
	Ms Sara Catherine Nathan
	The appointment of the final judicial member will be announced shortly.
	The Judicial Appointments Commission will have responsibility for making selections for the appointment of all judicial office-holders (as provided for in schedule 14 to the Constitutional Reform Act 2005). Baroness Prashar, the Lord Chief Justice and I have considered the arrangements necessary to ensure that the Commission can make the decisive and confident start that we are all agreed is essential. Details of these agreed arrangements have been published today on my Department's website at: http://www.dca.gov.uk/pubs/statements/st060123.htm. They will ensure that the transitional period is as short as possible, while bringing about a smooth and effective handover of business to the new Commission."

Andy Burnham: Further to Baroness Scotland's statement of Wednesday 18 January, the Paymaster General and I are this afternoon meeting senior figures in law enforcement and the banking sector to discuss action against ID fraud. The significance of ID fraud has been further emphasised by recent attempts by organised criminals to defraud the tax credit system.
	The meeting will discuss further ways of improving joint working on ID fraud, in particular through developing the work of public-private groups like the Home Office led Identity Fraud Steering Committee (IFSC). Criminals who target the public sector are also likely to target the private sector. The meeting will also be discussing ways of ensuring the maximum appropriate sharing of information to protect public and private sector organisations from ID fraud.
	As Baroness Scotland set out in her statement, the introduction of a secure national identity scheme/identity cards scheme using biometric information will make a step change in protecting people from identity fraud. As part of the work of the Ministerial Committee on ID cards, HMRC and the Home Office continue to evaluate the role of the national identity register in combating identity fraud.
	At the meeting, the Paymaster General and I will be proposing a four step action programme to be taken forward urgently over the next few months under the Identity Fraud Steering Committee:
	First, Government will explore with CIFAS—The UK's Fraud Prevention Service—the procedures for notifying them of the details of employees whose identities have been compromised as a result of large scale ID theft. This will help ensure that employees whose records have been stolen will not suffer adverse impact on their credit ratings and protect their identities from further abuse.
	Secondly, the IFSC will take forward urgently plans to encourage credit reference agencies and CIFAS to share information with the public sector, for example by welcoming public sector organisations into the CIFAS membership. It will also work to ensure public sector organisations take full advantage of these new opportunities, for example by becoming full members of the CIFAS network. This will ensure that the details of criminals who defraud, for example, the tax credit system are shared in the same way as those criminals who attack private sector organisations. This will enable partners in both the public and private sector to detect and prevent identity related crime.
	Thirdly, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) will carry out a strategic review of all suspicious activity reports relating to tax credit and identity fraud to inform the strategy to tackle this threat.
	Fourthly, HMRC will produce an assessment of the typical profile of frauds committed to assist the banks in identifying suspect payments and accounts, enabling them to make timely suspicious activity reports to NCIS and SOCA.